Entertainment

Trulia Launches Snapshot Visual Search Tool

Trulia, a real estate search site which stands among the best in the business and which offers users detailed discovery of properties for sale as well as quite detailed analysis of real estate markets, has launched a new utility called Snapshot, powered by Microsoft Virtual Earth, that overlays housing data atop an interactive map that is nothing short of a visual treat. Once the user specifies a city or town to view, all basic browsing on Snapshot is done via images. The user can grab any area of the map to move it about, just as you would Virtual Earth in its primary setting.

As you can see, the theme is rich with gray and black hues, with Trulia’s trademark green providing accents for navigation functions and quick views of particular properties. If you opt to see more extensive details of a location, you’re whisked to its primary page on Trulia, where, if the property happens to fall under the watchful road-going eye of the Google Street View van, you can also take a peek at the front door and the surrounding neighborhood.

Trulia surely recognizes that Snapshot is heavy on eye candy and low on substance, but the new front-end seems well integrated enough into main database of the website to prove useful for those who wish to take a bird’s-eye view to home shopping. If you feel that basic, linear search results aren’t quite what they used to be, and you’re in the market for a new roof - or just curious - Snapshot is certainly offers a nice fresh feel to Trulia's already well-regarded search engine.

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